


One Lifetime

by Dragoon23



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25764511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragoon23/pseuds/Dragoon23
Summary: Summary: What if the Crisis merging of the various universes wasn’t as seamless as the shows portrayed? Countless lifetimes suppressed into one life, one body, one mind. That’s going to leave a mark.
Relationships: Nyssa al Ghul/Sara Lance
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	One Lifetime

Nyssa awoke to the nastiest headache she ever had in her life. She reached for her dagger under her pillow and groaned in confusion when it wasn’t there. Why would she have knives under her pillow in the first place?

She stumbled out of bed and dragged herself to the bathroom to get some painkillers. Nyssa squinted as she turned on the light and looked at her appearance in the mirror. Her hair was short. When did she cut it? Why wouldn’t she cut it?

She dropped the pill bottle into the sink as her hands couldn’t stop shaking violently. The pain in her head traveled down her body making her knees buckle and she fell to the floor. Her hands looked wrong, her body was too soft, where were her scars?

The pain in her skull kept throbbing as she pulled herself up to the bathroom counter. She only briefly looked at her face in the mirror before turning away when the pain increased.

Her curiously unscarred hands fished the pill bottle from the sink and opened it, dumping two tablets into her hand. After swallowing them, she stumbled back into bed. Nyssa dimly was aware she had to call in sick for work, but she was exhausted. Using the last of her dimming strength and as her vision blurred, she grabbed her phone and dialed an unfamiliar number.

She passed out.

* * *

When she awoke, she found herself in a medical bed with numerous advanced equipment. The pain stabbed deeply into her head repeatedly, making her close her eyes tightly and groan.

“Why the fuck isn’t it working, Gideon?!”

“Her body is rejecting the merge and all my attempts to stabilize her, Captain. At this rate, she will expire in 24 hours.”

“What can we do then?!”

Nyssa recognized that voice and it sounded the same and yet different from how she remembered it. An unknown word bubbled through the pain and she gasped, “Habibti?”

Someone grasped her hand and she opened her eyes, briefly noting yellow hair before slamming her eyes shut as countless conflicting memories crashed into her brain. Lifetimes upon lifetimes condensed into one single moment that seemed to stretch into agonizing eternity. She was an assassin, a lawyer, a student, a barista, a soldier, a demon, an experiment, and a casualty. Nonexistent wounds opened and closed, her limbs shortened and lengthened, her body destroying itself as it configured and reconfigured at an inhuman pace over and over again trying to match countless conflicting blueprints of a thousand lifetimes.

She mercifully blacked out, distantly noting the screaming noise in the background was hers.

* * *

When Nyssa awoke, the first thing she noticed was the warm water surrounding her body. She was so tired and her head continued to pound but at least it wasn’t the sharp pains of being stabbed and carved up a thousand times over and over again. Nyssa gingerly tested all her limbs and let a small sigh of relief when the pain didn’t become worst as it did the previous times.

“You’re awake!”

The woman turned her head to face the speaker. Shoulder length blonde hair, blue eyes, a wide sunny smile. Nyssa closed her eyes as the pain suddenly returned. Other images floated to the surface of feral eyes and an angry snarl. Or was she a brown haired woman with green eyes and an easy smile?

Nyssa felt hands grasp her shoulders causing her to look up into concerned blue eyes. “Hey, hey, stay with me. Concentrate on my voice.”

Nyssa gritted her teeth as she tried. The stabbing of her skull throbbed in time with her quickening heartbeat and she grasped the blonde’s forearms tightly with her hands as she listened to the blonde’s voice telling her sweet nothings. Who was this woman to her? 

When the pain finally lessened and she became aware of her surroundings again, she realized her head was in the other woman’s lap. A name drifted from her heart and she realized who this woman was. Sara. Her name was Sara.

Nyssa gingerly lifted her head from Sara’s lap and released a relieved sigh when she could finally look at the other woman without knives stabbing skull.

“Sara.”

Nyssa frowned at herself why the name slipping through felt both right and wrong. “What is happening to me?”

“What do you remember?”

“I was in bed at a safehouse, no an apartment. A knife under the pillow? I went the bathroom to get some painkillers. I called a number.”

Nyssa drifted into silence as the memories swirled into one, but without the excruciating pain of before. Lifetimes upon lifetimes, a thousand memories of falling asleep in a thousand different rooms and cells before she awoke in one room, one body, one life. 

She looked up at Sara, noting the guilty look in her eyes. “What happened?”

* * *

Nyssa, looked out the a window on the time ship over looking planet Earth. The crew had largely ignored her though whether due to Sara’s orders or her own glares she didn’t know or care.

The League did not exist in this one lone universe. She was a scientist, studying and marveling the stars and planets for their beauty. In this world, she never met Sara.

Nyssa looked down at her hands which had numerous half formed and faded scars, her body’s compromise. That’s what she was now, an amalgamation cobbled together from various lifetimes, crudely stitched together by the waters of a Pit. Her assassin self may have destroyed all of the ones in her universe, but here they were all still very present and just as dangerous. She made fists, relishing the feeling of blunt, broken nails digging into her palms.

“Hey, how are ya doing?”

Nyssa doesn’t turn to the voice, though she could feel her tired heart beat just a little faster. This world’s Nyssa and many others never knew Sara, but countless more knew and loved her. Some were even able to hold her close and call her-

Nyssa dug her nails deeper into her palms, relishing the anchoring pain. In this world she never met Sara. “I am fine. Is there something you need, Sara?”

She can tell the other woman was hurt by her abruptness but she couldn’t help it. Nyssa was not the assassin (or lawyer, or barista, or doctor, or any of the other countless lifetimes) and she would never be again. The Crisis and Pit’s waters saw to that.

Sara scratched her head, looking sheepishly at the other woman. “Just-Where do you want to go? I can drop you anywhere and any time.”

Nyssa stood tall, taking one last look at the spinning blue and green planet beneath her. This world’s Nyssa would have loved the view. “Take me back to my...apartment.”

* * *

Back at the apartment, Nyssa absentmindedly noted what was the same and different about this particular world’s set up compared to those in her various memories. She faintly smiled at the stuff animal of a yellow bird on a seat. Her abandoned notes on a new star laid on a table and she supposed she should just continue her work as best as she could even with the countless memories in her brain now. She would survive regardless. The ones who didn’t make it deserved that much.

With her back turned to the other woman, she spoke coldly. “You can leave now, and return to your time ship. I no longer require your help.”

“Nyssa-”

Nyssa gritted her teeth, refusing to acknowledge how her cobbled together heart beat so quickly, screaming for her to stop talking, to fight back. But she was so tired and she already lost. Every time she had some small measure of happiness, it was just as quickly snatched away from her. Perhaps it was best for her to just fade away in this world. “I am not her, Sara. You salvaged a ghost.”

“No.”

Nyssa turned sharply to glare at the other woman. “No?”

Sara took a step forward. “I abandoned you once, at your request. I am not doing that again.”

Nyssa rolled her eyes, digging her nails into her palm. “She’s dead, Sara.”

“No, you’re here, standing in front of me.”

Nyssa shook her head, unable to look at Sara any longer. “What’s standing in front of you is just a broken vessel that’s full of fragments of who we - I used to be. Nothing more. Besides, you already have a beloved. Go back to her and live your life, Sara. The league doesn’t exist in this life and I am merely an astronomer, a safe profession. There will be no assassins, bounty hunters, or others with murderous grudges against me here. I might even die of old age with all my limbs intact.”

Sara flinched at the reminder of her own obligations, which gave Nyssa a slim measure of satisfaction mixed with pain. The dark haired woman unconsciously felt her right forearm to make sure it was still there. When the blonde made didn’t make a sound, Nyssa nodded in resignation and slowly walked to the bedroom, ignoring how this feels like a final end of something.

When she heard the front door mercifully open and close, Nyssa finally allowed herself to mourn the lifetimes lost and the maybes that never will be anymore.

* * *

Her colleagues at work gave her a wide berth after noting the haunted look in her eyes and the numerous scars. Her cover story was a very bad car accident and Nyssa had no desire to speak with them anyway. 

Her work comforted her as she tracked and analyzed the new data coming from various satellites. They kept her busy and her hands occupied. Sometimes she forgot she had both arms in this lifetime and used one or the other exclusively until she remembered. She could never remember which hand was suppose to be the dominant one.

After the first month of uneasy peace, Nyssa felt restless despite her daily basic workouts. The need to move, to fight, to do _something_ gnawed at body until she finally found herself grabbing a knife and slicing the air with it. Decades of muscle memories of numerous katas flowed, helping guide her body’s through the movements until she dropped to the floor, breathless and exhausted, knife still in hand. She leaned back against the wall, her grip tightening around the handle of the knife.

Against her better judgement, she found herself purchasing a bow and arrow set. The set sat in the corner of her apartment for the better part of a month until she finally caved and took them reluctantly to a public archery range in a city park. Nyssa stood nervously in line, waiting for her turn, her palms becoming sweaty. Finally, when a spot opened she moved her gear to the shooting line. Just like with the knife, memories of lifetimes guided her body to the proper form. When she nocked and released her first arrow, Nyssa felt like she could finally breathe. With each released arrow, she felt another part slide of herself into a more fitting location. The feeling of a bow in her hand, the familiar and yet unfamiliar twinge in her shoulders, her mind quieting with the repetition of the motion, it almost made up for the fact that her arrows never quite found the center of the target.

For a time, the knives, bow, and arrows help to make her feel just a little like before but she found herself losing track of time as memories would haunt her. Everywhere she looked she saw ghosts from multiple lifetimes and the nights were the worst where she was reminded how just how alone she was in this new world. Her dreams remained fragmented of various memories mashed together and she often awoke unsure of who or where she was.

One evening, she noted someone was following her. Exasperated, she turned around to face her stalker. “You can come out now, Sara.”

The blonde sheepishly appeared from behind a corner. “Hi.”

Nyssa crossed her arms, frowning at the other woman, trying to stop her traitorous heart from beating so quickly. “What do you want?”

Sara nervously looked around the streets as she said, “Can we do this back at your place?”

“Fine.”

* * *

Once inside and doors locked, Nyssa turned to face the other woman, crossing her arms. “What do you want, Sara?”

Sara’s eyes lingered on the bow and arrow set in the corner before turning back to Nyssa. “I broke it off with Ava.”

Nyssa dug her nails into her arm as she willed her face to show no emotion. She had not expected that and didn’t know what to say.

Sara continued after noting Nyssa’s silence. “You don’t know how fucking terrified I was when I received that call, Nyssa. No one calls that number without a damn good reason and when Gideon tracked it down? Shit, I dropped everything to get there and we almost didn’t make it, your body was already a mess. It was like something out of the Thing.”

Sara began pacing, words tumbling out. “You know how I feel about the Pits but I was watching you die a horrible agonizing death on that table and there wasn’t a single fucking thing I can do. And then I thought of the Pits. If it can raise the dead, maybe it can keep you stable while we figured something out.”

She stopped and looked at Nyssa again. “At the Pits, you don’t know how relieved I was when the water seemed to keep up better than Gideon with your merger. You stopped screaming. I don’t know how it worked, and I frankly don’t give a shit but-”

She slowly took Nyssa’s heavily scarred hands into her own. “I realized that I’ve been an idiot. Nothing and I do mean nothing can compare to what we have. And I’m gonna spend the rest of my life making up for abandoning you all this time. I shouldn’t have ever left in the first place. Even if you only see me as a friend now or never forgive me.”

Nyssa swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. She pulled her hands out of Sara’s loose grip. Everything she always wanted to hear but it almost felt a little too late. She was no longer _her_. She fisted her hands and turned around, unwilling to look any further at her heart’s desire. “There’s nothing to forgive, Sara. As I said earlier, I don’t require your help any longer and you can leave. There’s nothing for you here.“

“Bullshit.”

Nyssa stiffened when she felt arms wrapped around her from behind in a loose hold. “You’re still her, Nyssa. You’re still here. Don’t think I don’t see that well used bow and arrow set. Or that bird stuff animal. Or how you organized your papers with precision because you’re OCD about that type of stuff.”

Nyssa couldn’t help a watery chuckle at the last point.

“I know I failed you before but I’ll be damned if I let this go without even trying at all. That’s not us, Nyssa. If this doesn’t work out, than I’ll leave you be but aren’t we worth a chance?”

Nyssa couldn’t answer. Instead, she squeezed Sara’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this back in January/Feb when I was hella sick and on tons of cough meds. Cobbled together my fever induced ramblings into something hopefully coherent. Not satisfied with the ending and may work in another chap for the epilogue. I don't know.


End file.
